The forecast
The market for artificial intelligence agent software in the Asia-Pacific region, which includes Asia, Australia and New Zealand, will be more than fourteen times its current size by 2030. That is the estimate released by research firm Omdia during its annual event held on Thursday in Beijing, as reported by the South China Morning Post. According to the forecast, regional revenue will rise from an estimated $782 million this year to $11.2 billion in 2030, including mainland China and Hong Kong.
The growing importance of agents
Omdia does not merely indicate the absolute value of the segment: the company also estimates that the agentic component will rise from 1.7% to 12.3% of regional AI software revenue over the same period. The figure places agents among the fastest-expanding categories in the region’s AI software landscape, even though the starting point remains small in terms of share.
The definition adopted helps clarify what is being measured: AI agents use models to plan and autonomously execute multi-step tasks, such as data analysis, drafting reports and operations on software. In this way, the user can delegate activities that would otherwise require repeated instructions. It is this ability to act without step-by-step commands that distinguishes the segment from more directly usable generative AI tools.
The push from Chinese companies
According to the research firm, the trajectory outlined by Omdia is driven by growing adoption of automated tools by Chinese technology companies, used both in office work and in industrial processes. The forecast covers the entire Asia-Pacific region, including Australia and New Zealand, but the dynamic described places the Chinese market at the center as the engine of demand.
Some elements remain to be clarified. The available material does not specify which companies are involved or how spending is distributed among the countries of the region. It also does not indicate which segments — office or industry — weigh most heavily in the projected growth. This is therefore a market forecast, not a final tally: the 2030 figure is an estimate that will need to be verified against actual data in future years.
